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A review by astridrv
SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas, Avital Ronell
challenging
dark
informative
This one is controversial. If you're looking for a calm, composed, respectful analysis of sexism, walk away. This manifest is incendiary, trash, smart, angry, provocative, satirical, relatable, rude, sassy, daring, violent (and also, ableist as fuck). If you used most of these words to describe a book written by a man, I would be unlikely to read it. But Solanas, of course, turns everything on its head in her infamous self published, self distributed manifest of misandry.
I laughed almost every page - because it was irreverent, it spared no punches, because it is not allowed to say things like that or to laugh at sentences like hers. And that alone felt like a catalyst. It made me a bit emotional about how easy it is to find this book now (internet!) and how underground it must have been at the time.
This is not a nuanced and thoughtful critique of a misogynistic world. It is carefully constructed, in its own way, and I resent anyone seeing it as a delirious rant by a traumatized woman. Yes she was traumatized, and yes she is not polite - does that mean her voice and her tone have no value?
It's definitely not a book for everyone, but if it's for you, you'll know by page 1. (CW on murder, ableism and eugenics. Although I know plenty of trans women loved this book, it can be very triggering, including for transmasc people) I wanted to add some quotes here, but I highlighted almost all of the book. Lemme try nonetheless, to give you an idea of the tone of the book:
"In actual fact, the female function is to relate, groove, love and be herself, irreplaceable by anyone else; the male function is to produce sperm. We now have sperm banks."
"Although the male, being ashamed of what he is and almost of everything he does, insists on privacy and secrecy in all aspects of his life, he has no real regard for privacy. Being empty, not being a complete, separate being, having no self to groove on and needing to be constantly in female company, he sees nothing at all wrong in intruding himself on any woman's thoughts, even a total stranger's, anywhere at any time, but rather feels indignant and insulted when put down for doing so, as well as confused - he can't, for the life of him, understand why anyone would prefer so much as one minute of solitude to the company of any creep around. Wanting to become a woman, he strives to be constantly around females, which is the closest he can get to becoming one, so he created a 'society' based upon the family - a male-female couple and their kids (the excuse for the family's existence), who live virtually on top of one another, unscrupulously violating the female's rights, privacy and sanity."
"The male's inability to relate to anybody or anything makes his life pointless and meaningless (the ultimate male insight is that life is absurd), so he invented philosophy and religion. Being empty, he looks outward, not only for guidance and control, but for salvation and for the meaning of life. Happiness being for him impossible on this earth, he invented Heaven. (...) Most men, utterly cowardly, project their inherent weaknesses onto women, label them female weaknesses and believe themselves to have female strengths; most philosophers, not quite so cowardly, face the fact that male lacks exist in men, but still can't face the fact that they exist in men only. So they label the male condition the Human Condition, posit their nothingness problem, which horrifies them, as a philosophical dilemma, thereby giving stature to their animalism, grandiloquently label their nothingness their "Identity Problem" and proceed to prattle on pompously about the "Crisis of the Individual", the "Essence of Being" etc. A woman not only takes her identity and individuality for granted, but knows instinctively that the only wrong is to hurt others, and that the meaning of life is love."
I laughed almost every page - because it was irreverent, it spared no punches, because it is not allowed to say things like that or to laugh at sentences like hers. And that alone felt like a catalyst. It made me a bit emotional about how easy it is to find this book now (internet!) and how underground it must have been at the time.
This is not a nuanced and thoughtful critique of a misogynistic world. It is carefully constructed, in its own way, and I resent anyone seeing it as a delirious rant by a traumatized woman. Yes she was traumatized, and yes she is not polite - does that mean her voice and her tone have no value?
It's definitely not a book for everyone, but if it's for you, you'll know by page 1. (CW on murder, ableism and eugenics. Although I know plenty of trans women loved this book, it can be very triggering, including for transmasc people) I wanted to add some quotes here, but I highlighted almost all of the book. Lemme try nonetheless, to give you an idea of the tone of the book:
"In actual fact, the female function is to relate, groove, love and be herself, irreplaceable by anyone else; the male function is to produce sperm. We now have sperm banks."
"Although the male, being ashamed of what he is and almost of everything he does, insists on privacy and secrecy in all aspects of his life, he has no real regard for privacy. Being empty, not being a complete, separate being, having no self to groove on and needing to be constantly in female company, he sees nothing at all wrong in intruding himself on any woman's thoughts, even a total stranger's, anywhere at any time, but rather feels indignant and insulted when put down for doing so, as well as confused - he can't, for the life of him, understand why anyone would prefer so much as one minute of solitude to the company of any creep around. Wanting to become a woman, he strives to be constantly around females, which is the closest he can get to becoming one, so he created a 'society' based upon the family - a male-female couple and their kids (the excuse for the family's existence), who live virtually on top of one another, unscrupulously violating the female's rights, privacy and sanity."
"The male's inability to relate to anybody or anything makes his life pointless and meaningless (the ultimate male insight is that life is absurd), so he invented philosophy and religion. Being empty, he looks outward, not only for guidance and control, but for salvation and for the meaning of life. Happiness being for him impossible on this earth, he invented Heaven. (...) Most men, utterly cowardly, project their inherent weaknesses onto women, label them female weaknesses and believe themselves to have female strengths; most philosophers, not quite so cowardly, face the fact that male lacks exist in men, but still can't face the fact that they exist in men only. So they label the male condition the Human Condition, posit their nothingness problem, which horrifies them, as a philosophical dilemma, thereby giving stature to their animalism, grandiloquently label their nothingness their "Identity Problem" and proceed to prattle on pompously about the "Crisis of the Individual", the "Essence of Being" etc. A woman not only takes her identity and individuality for granted, but knows instinctively that the only wrong is to hurt others, and that the meaning of life is love."
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Transphobia, Murder, and Violence